U.S. COULD TAKE IN TEEN CARTEL KILLER

Teen convicted of beheadings set to be freed in December

A San Diego-born teenager convicted of beheading four young men on behalf of a drug cartel in central Mexico could be back in the United States by the end of the year or sooner.

Edgar Jimenez Lugo, who was 14 when the killings occurred, has asked to be transferred to the United States, according to juvenile court authorities in Mexico and a relative there. He is serving a three-year sentence at a juvenile detention center in Morelos state, just south of Mexico City, and is due to get out in December.

The president of the Morelos juvenile court system, which oversees Edgar’s rehabilitation, said the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City is evaluating the teen’s transfer request.

“The corresponding studies are being done by the embassy and they have until July 31 to decide on his transfer,” Ana Virinia Pérez told reporters in Cuernavaca, Mexico, on Friday. “It is assumed that the embassy is following through with all the requirements.”

A spokesman for the U.S. Embassy declined Wednesday to comment on the case after consulting with the State Department. Several U.S. law enforcement agencies also declined to comment on the transfer request.

It is unclear whether the request was initiated by the teenager or U.S. authorities, who have regularly visited Edgar at the detention center that currently holds 134 juveniles.

Judges and case workers from the Morelos juvenile courts are on summer recess until August and unavailable to comment.

Edgar, who turned 17 in May, has not been accused of crimes against Americans or U.S. institutions. Criminal justice experts, however, have said U.S. prosecutors could try to pursue conspiracy charges against the teen based on possible links to cross-border drug smuggling networks.

But former federal prosecutor John Kirby said an extradition-style transfer on drug conspiracy charges is unlikely given Edgar’s age and situation.

“It’s probably for humanitarian reasons — just to get him in a better spot up here rather than to prosecute him,” said Kirby, who previously coordinated international issues at the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego.

A U.S. Embassy official contacted Edgar’s family to see if they would consent to the transfer, said a relative of the teen, who asked not to be named out of safety concerns.

The relative received a description of a supervised environment where Edgar would be able to continue school studies and begin working.

The killings Edgar committed occurred in August 2010. The bodies of his victims — a student, a cook at a university, a gas station attendant and a small-business owner — were mutilated and strung from a bridge in Cuernavaca, a tourist destination just south of Mexico City.

Mexican military authorities soon began searching for the teen after graphic online videos emerged that talked of a boy assassin named “El Ponchis.”

Soldiers arrested him in December 2010 at an airport near Cuernavaca as he and an older sister waited for a flight to Tijuana. They were planning to reunite with their mother, Yolanda Lugo Jimenez, in San Diego. She was arrested days later in Barrio Logan on immigration violations.